New Year’s Climate Resolutions

Hi, all.

Happy New Year!

In recent years, there have been a lot of skeptics out there saying that New Year’s resolutions don’t matter– January 1st is “an arbitrary day,” after all, to start something. (As a self-identifying skeptic, I can confirm the existence of this point of view.) But after reading David Epstein’s latest edition of his e-newsletter “Why New Year’s Resolutions Actually Work Astoundingly Well,” I’ve been convinced otherwise: Citing studies and experts, Epstein writes, “Rather than perceiving our lives as a continuous river of time, we construct our inner autobiographies more like a staircase, punctuated by important dates, dramatic events, and first experiences… New chapters — even minor ones [like a new calendar year!] — can be leveraged to improve our behaviors.” Indeed, when you consider the fact that a reported 20% of people actually keep their New Year’s resolutions, I’d wager that’s a pretty high success rate of making life changes over any other day of the year. 

So, this is a few days late at this point, but I’m hoping we (you and I, dear reader) can still use some of the momentum of the New Year to set some climate action goals for 2022. I’ve done some thinking and researching about what I might want to accomplish and how to do so, and I’ll share those thoughts below, but I mostly hope that this is just a jumping off point for you to make your own list of achievable and meaningful goals!

2022 Climate Action New Year’s Resolution Ideas:

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